Nicholas A. Peppas, Sc.D.

	Jay Blanchette University of Texas at Austin 1 University Station, C0400 Austin, TX, 78712 PHONE: (512)471-6910 job1@mail.utexas.edu
Research Summary
Jay Blanchette is originally from Southampton, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University after which he completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. He started work towards his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering with Professor Nicholas A. Peppas at Purdue University and came to UT-Austin with Professor Peppas in January of 2003. His thesis research is in the areas of drug delivery and cancer therapy. Oral chemotherapy is an area of increasing research due to the numerous advantages this administration method can provide over traditional intravenous delivery. These benefits include lower toxicity, improved patient compliance and quality of life as well as increased flexibility of dosing schedules and lower cost. While certain chemotherapeutic agents such as tamoxifen can be given orally, the majority do not reach the bloodstream in an active form when administered orally. As a result, new chemotherapeutic agents capable of being administered orally are under investigation. Another strategy to reap the benefits of oral chemotherapy without trying to research new drugs is to develop carriers to deliver currently available drugs into the circulation via the gastrointestinal tract. Jay’s research focuses on development of just such a system. Methacrylic acid-based hydrogel nanospheres loaded with bleomycin, a model chemotherapeutic agent, have been synthesized and tested in vitro. These carriers are designed to release bleomycin in the upper small intestine in response to the pH increase after passing from the stomach. The nanospheres are also able to aid transport of bleomycin across a model of the intestinal epithelium and ungoing studies have shown that the released bleomycin retains its activity against a tumor cell model. These carriers have shown great promise for delivery of a variety of chemotherapeutic agents and will hopefully expand the spectrum of agents capable of being administered orally.

Selected Publications
Doong H, Price J, Sook Y K, Gasbarre C, Probst J, Liotta L A, Blanchette J, Rizzo K, and Kohn E C. CAIR-1/BAG-3 forms an EGF-regulated ternary complex with phospholipase C-γ and Hsp70/Hsc70. Oncogene, 19, 4385-4395, (2000). Brown M R, Blanchette J O, and Kohn E C. Angiogenesis in ovarian cancer. Bailliere’s Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 14, 901-18, (2000). Blanchette J, Park K, and Peppas N A, “Oral Administration of Chemotherapeutic Agents Using Complexation Hydrogels,” in J. McKittrick, J. Aizenberg, C. Orme, P. Vekilov, eds., “Biological and Biomimetic Materials – Properties to Function,” 215-220, Volume 724, MRS, Pittsburgh, PA, 2002. Brown Jones M, Michener C, Blanchette J O, Kuznetsov V A, Raffeld M, Serrero G, Emmert-Buck M A, Petricoin E F, Krizman D B, Liotta L A and Kohn E C. The granulin-epithelin precursor/PC-cell-derived growth factor is a growth factor for epithelial ovarian cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 9, 44-51, (2003). Blanchette J, Kavimandan N and Peppas N A. Principles of transmucosal delivery of therapeutic agents. Biomed Pharmacother (In Press).

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